Most successful existing businesses are totally preoccupied with their most important, existing customers and therefore lack the peripheral opportunity vision to spot new products and services. How is this happening where you work (or if you don’t work, maybe a friend)? Is this an opportunity for you?
This post was part of TyroCity discussion forum
Question asked by hari_koirala
Top comments (4)
Yes, I totally agree with this statement. Now I am working in Academic sector and I am a teacher for School/College. In Nepal one of the most profitable business is Academic business. Because we have not tight policy in Education, and health. These are the fundamental right of human being. And every parents want to make their children educate. Approx. 50 to 70 lakhs Nepalese populations are their target market. So Investor generate higher revenue from this business. In NCIT College, there are 1500 students from 7 different faculties. One student pays minimum 10 Lakhs for his/her 4 years engineering program. And the total annual revenue is approx. 35 corer. They just teach them as per curriculum and conduct exam as per university norms, and sometimes they provide training and workshop program to their students. They have less than 10 corer annual expenses and Net profit is approx… 25 corer. So they don’t want to change because they the business process already earn a huge money from current situation. They thought that if they updated on timely and change the process then their profit may reduce. So they follow traditional teaching methodology to minimize the operating cost and other expenses. Every business has certain strategy and they also have a specific strategy. They have 5 different other schools and colleges. They have school business from kindergarten to master program. First they taught students in school level and persuade them to study their high school college in same network, and similarly persuade for college. They have clear market segment. Now they are a big brand in Nepalese education system. They have opportunity to scale up their business college to university. They have enough investment and resource and maximum number of students. But college management and executive team don’t want to scale up its college to university. Thay have an opportunity to scale up the business by using different technology and new teaching technique. If they provide the quality education to all then their product will be in top position in market then public trust them. In globally Harvard College has big name and fame, because they invest more in their product. They make their students global leader. So this technique is effective strategy of Harvard College. But NCIT can also have chance to be in top position, if they are able to sell their product in market.
In Summary, it may be conclude that all business has limited opportunity for their existing situation so they must have long term action plan that seeks to achieve sustainable competitive advantage (Rao, 2016).
References
Rao, P. (2016). Business Policy and Strategic Management . Himalyan Publising House, Mumbai.
In a manner of speaking yes. I work in a National NGO where most of program model attempts to improve the general economic condition of the rural poor and so the focus is on empowering women. I have questioned this aspect from time to time as we can see that culturally to get a woman into building up a business or economic activity where its male dominated society has a difficulty right at the start. I am not saying that women should not be focused and involved in the economic uplifting process but rather pointing out the fact that its missing out on the youth.
Youths have better opportunity and can be greater agents of change. Empowering youth into the economic process can go a long way into long term economic growth. The zeal, the risk taking factor, the freedom to move etc. are positive aspect that can be harnessed. The best place to seek and identify ideas is to understand the sea of change that can take place (Spinelli, Jr. & Adams). Involving youths can have major changes in the sustainability of the program and for economic viability of the families.
Some aspect of the program are very old and have not undergone changes as the situation have changed. Some of it are also donor driven.
I think this is an opportunity. Although program are focused on women participation, equal participation and priority should be given to the youths. Opportunity identification and exploration are two concepts to the entrepreneurial process (Kuckertz, Kollmann, & Krell, 2017). Understanding the opportunity in involving youth and women are best utilization of resource that we can tap. These can give synergic support to the success of programs launched.
References
Kuckertz, A., Kollmann, T., & Krell, P. (2017). Understanding, differentiating, and measuring opportunity recognition and opportunity exploitation. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research; Bradford , 78-97.
Spinelli, Jr., S., & Adams, R. (n.d.). New Venture Creation . New York City: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
I work in Health at Home Pvt. Ltd. which is the first home-based health service provider of Nepal. The organization offers customized services of doctor visits, nursing care, caregiver support, appointment management, drug delivery, logistics support, physiotherapy, lab on call, travelling support and vaccination to the clients. The organization operates 24/7 to bring inspiration and hope in the life of people through care. The team of doctors, nurses, lab technicians, physiotherapist along with the management staffs work together to attain the vision of serving the clients by being dedicated to their health and well-being through world class home care services (Health at Home Pvt. Ltd.).
The client base of the organization is composed of elderly people, people with chronic diseases, cancer patients and parents of NRNs. The major focus of the organization is on providing best possible service to the existing clients so that the satisfied customers will continue using our service and recommend their friends and family for the service so that we can get new customers through word of mouth publicity, which is working well for the company as more the 80 percent of the cases we are handing are from referral basis.
Like many other organizations, the company is concentrating its efforts on retaining the existing customers and improving the currently available services rather than exploring new opportunities available in the market. The training and development programs for nurses, weekly classes on the ways to take care of the patients and maintain personal hygiene, regular visit ti the clients for their feedback all are aimed on improving the quality of the services that are currently provided. It is because stepping into something new will require additional investment and manpower and there is risk associated with the investment.
After being a part of the organization for more than a year, one thing I have noticed is that the company is failing to generate revenue by serving the clients who require one time service and are ready to visit the office to get the desired service. For example, several people come to our office asking for physiotherapy services, lab tests and vaccinations to avoid the additional charge they need to pay for getting these services at their home. Since we are more focused on serving clients at their home, the manpower are employed outside the organizations and such clients cannot be served.
Since entrepreneurship is about making the services better, cheaper and faster, I see there is an opportunity for additional revenue generation if we set up a space in office where people can just walk in and get the service they desire (Spinelli & Adams). There is no need of additional investment as we already have the necessary logistics and equipment to provide general health facility. There is also enough manpower and all we need to do is make a routine to ensure at least one nurse, physiotherapists, lab technician and doctor is available in the office during the office hours so that we can serve the walk in customers and increase profitability.
Though I have spotted the opportunity, I need a team to convert that opportunity into business as I don’t have relevant knowledge about health care. However I can help with management, administrative and financial issues.
References
Health at Home Pvt. Ltd. (n.d.). History. Retrieved from About Us : healthathome.com.np/history
Spinelli, S., & Adams, R. J. (n.d.). New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century (Nineth ed.). Irwin: McGraw Hill Education.
A lot of people aspire to be entrepreneurs. However, the recent research by Failory (2018) reveals that 90% of the startups fail. It is because not everyone can handle the sacrifices, total immersion and heavy workload behind glamorized world of entrepreneurship. The common themes shared by successful entrepreneurs that describe their attitudes and ways towards thinking as acting as given by Spinelli and Adams are:
Commitment and Determination
Entrepreneurs live under huge, constant pressures. A venture demands lot of time, effort and loyalty as well as personal sacrifice from the entrepreneurs to make it survive, sustain and grow. So, they should be disciplined, able to commit quickly, tenacious and decisive.
Courage
Stepping up in the entrepreneurship journey is a courageous act. So, entrepreneurs need to be fearless experimenters, followers of moral principles, ready to accept conflicts and failures and face the risks, uncertainties and undesirable outcomes that may come in their way.
Leadership
Entrepreneurs start new ventures based on their ideas. But they cannot do everything on their own so they need to have a team and lead it effectively to make their ideas work. So it is important for them to possess the leadership traits like team building, practicing fairness, sharing responsibilities and acknowledging the experience, knowledge and effort of team members. They should be capable of inspiring others to move towards the shared vision.
Opportunity Obsession
In order to be successful, the entrepreneurs need to constantly monitor the changes in market to identify opportunities provided by changing patterns and capitalize on those changes. They need to be obsessed with value creation and enhancement to develop strategies, practices and habits that help to tackle the market-based problems and capture available opportunities.
Tolerance of Risk, Ambiguity and Uncertainty
It is not guaranteed that the entrepreneurs will get the desired outcomes and results from their venture. So they need to be prepared for tolerating the risks, ambiguity and risks associated with the project. They should be able to manage paradoxes and contradictions, tolerate uncertainty and lack of structure, handle stress and conflict, resolve problems and integrate solutions.
Creativity, Self-reliance and Adaptability
Innovation and ability to adapt changes are important to sustain in the ever changing business situation. The entrepreneurs should be non-conventional, open-minded, creative thinker, quick learner, change adapter, challenger of status quo and willing to learn from failure in order to succeed.
Motivation to Excel
Successful entrepreneurs are motivated intrinsically to compete and excel. They are aware of their strengths and weaknesses along with that of their competitors and create high but realistic and attainable goals based on that. They push themselves constantly to achieve that goals.
In my opinion, all of these are equally important. Absence of any one of these attributes may result in the failure of an enterprise. For example, if an entrepreneur is highly motivated, courageous, creative, committed and determined but is not prepared for handling the unpredictable circumstances and adjusting with the changes in business environment, even a small change in the environment in which it operates will make the entrepreneur lose his/her focus as a result of which the enterprise may fail.
All these qualities can be encouraged and developed over time. Consulting with the people who are successful in similar domain, mentorship and apprenticeship, analyzing the past experiences, being aware of personal and company’s strengths and weaknesses, brainstorming for additional insights, studying the processes of other companies of similar nature anf constantly updating oneself are the ways to develop these attributes. In addition, the attitude of learning continuously and taking everything that comes on the way with open mind can also be helpful in this.
References
Failory. (2018). The Ultimate Startup Failure Rate Infographic . Retrieved from failory.com/blog/startup-failure-rate
Spinelli, S., & Adams, R. J. (n.d.). New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century (Nineth ed.). Irwin: McGraw Hill Education.